I remember being so grateful for Trumpet of the Swans. I read it when I was eight. I can’t remember the specifics of where I read it or how I found it, just that feeling of profound gratitude that such a book existed, that someone had written such a book. Much of this gratitude was directed to the author, E.B. White. He hadn’t let me down. I had been counting on him since Stuart Little, the first book I read on my own. Well, not entirely on my own. I read it with the help of E.B. White.

My sister Laura taught me to read when I was five. We lay on the avocado shag rug in our living room on our bellies with a Fisher Price magnetic chalkboard between us, the chalkboard affixed to the top of a box so that it slid open and closed. The box contained the magnetic letters. My sister used these letters to spell out words for me that she would then tell me to sound out.

I was fascinated by the silent “e” that she made sound so secretive and powerful when she put it at the end of words. I imagined it as a magical old grandmotherly-type woman who changed the sound of words while she made herself invisible. I didn’t understand silent “e’s” function, even though I’m sure Laura explained about long vowel sounds. I just liked that it was silent but came at the end and was important. That’s how I wanted to be. I was the quiet one in the family, I came last, the youngest, and yet I wanted to be important.

I didn’t follow much of what Laura said as we lay on our bellies on the floor. I loved moving around the colorful letters and I dutifully made the sounds she asked me to make. I was so happy that she was playing with me. I didn’t care about reading.

But one day, I sat in her room while she was trying to do her homework. This was probably a daily ritual of me with my fourteen-year old sister. I hung out in her room until she would play with me. Sometimes she’d pull out the rock polisher and I would get to put stones I collected from outside into it, press the button and hear it rattle around till the machine stopped, and I’d pull out a now unrecognizable shiny with streaks of previously unsuspected color. Sometimes she’d teach me how to batik. But most of the time, she needed to do homework and for me to be quiet. That’s when she came up with the idea of recorded books.

She sat me down in front of her phonograph, handed me the book Stuart Little, and opened it to the first page. Then she lifted the needle and the record began to spin. When she dropped the needle on the record, a quiet deep voice that I would now call folksy, but at the time sounded perfect, announced, “Stuart Little.” I was in love. At first, I just listened, but I obediently turned the pages when the ding prompted me to do so. And one day, I started to recognize words. Following along felt magical. I could read the words. I could understand the words on the page. I didn’t have to rely on the man reading any more although I still did. But I could check that he was reading the right words. In fact, I could read the words at the same time. That’s when Laura told me to be quiet, that I could read the words in my head. After all, the whole point of setting me up with the book and the recording was to give me something to do that would keep me quiet.

Two years later, when she went to college, she told me that’s why she taught me to read. So that I’d have something to do, so she could get her homework done. She didn’t say it mean, just matter-of-factly, with a bit of a smile, with a tone that said why do you think a sixteen-year-old would spend so much time doing that?

And when I understood those first words of Stuart Little, I understood somehow that she’d given me a friend, a friend that would always be there, no matter what, who would never tire of me. That’s why I was grateful when I read Trumpet of the Swans, because I discovered there was more than one and I could rely on E.B. White.